Dust of Dolls - Doom

I wish they would have told us this on IG, tbh. I totally understand that they are busy but when people throw at you so much money, the least you can do is keeping everyone updated. Anyway thank you SO MUCH for the news! It's little but it's something, at least.

 

I heard back as well! In my email, Lyly apologized for taking so long to reply and said "last monthes have been quite complicated for both of us here, with health and personal problems to manage and that kept me quite unable to deal with the website messages due to anxiety attacks." I imagine it is stressful managing an order with that much money involved when production is running late and you don't have any news. I suspect this preorder was a lot bigger than they've had in the past because it's the first one they've had for a bigger doll since (to my perception) their dolls really shot up in popularity/price on the secondhand market last year. A public update would be very appreciated though!

I received my other invoices as well (direct via email/Stripe) by the way.

 

agree buyers like to know all info even if negative because we want to know what is going on. This helps us all to wait far easier. thank god you got your invoices!! Glace Leau. I am waiting on Edda and also Kore which came out shortly after.

 

Waiting on Edda honestly I think it would ease everyone's minds if they just give some kind of update, or at least show that there still around on there social pages I think its the silence and lack of activity that's making it worse.

 

Last week marked officially eight months into our wait. I’m not sure if anyone mentioned here how the site was down, but the site is back up and has been since being down not that long ago.

I’m hoping my birthday magic rubs off, and we get our ship notices no later than August! Praying it’s more than just wishful thinking

 

The fact that no one is doing anything is not normal.

 

I’m honestly exasperated with Dust of Dolls. It has been an ongoing saga of trying to get them paid since November. My credit card could not be processed on their site after I made the first payment, and it has been a total nightmare trying to get a response. I’ve been so patient with them, but I feel like every time I may get a response from them, it’s false hope once more.

I documented my entire experience here:

Spoiler: Wall of preview text that the site loads from IG but I’m on mobile and can’t fix it.

Porpita on Instagram: "Hey all, I really hate making posts like these but I’m honestly super stressed with this layaway I have with #dustofdolls. I purchased an Edda from them during their preorder period and signed up for a 3 month layaway. I was able to make one payment okay with my credit card card, but when the time came to make my second and third payments, I got a new card, and Square would not process the charges. I didn’t even have the charge appear so I could not even tell my bank to let it through. I even tried to have a one time use CC number generated to see if it would help, and it didn’t. I wrote to them about this in December when the second payment was due, and I received a response on Jan 2 asking me to use other devices. I wrote back in my response in the next slides with what I did and then heard back from them on Jan 4 that another customer experienced something similarly and that they would send me a link to pay. I waited,l but didn’t get an email or message. I then contacted them again on the following dates: - Jan 10 - Jan 26 - March 1 - May 1. To this day, I still haven’t received a response. It’s been over four months since I heard from them and about six months since I first placed my order. I wrote to them back in January through Instagram when I first posted, but I was told that they would get back to me and won’t cancel my order. I dislike contacting companies through Instagram since I know it’s so hard to keep track of responses (and most companies want you to use email or their site), but I don’t know where else I can reach them and hope for a response. They are whitelisted in my email, and I check my spam to make sure I didn’t miss a message from them. My last layaway payment was due in January. I have had the funds to pay. Dust of Dolls won’t respond to me. I don’t know what else to do. Has anyone else experienced this before? Is this normal? I’ve never had an experience like this with any company, including all small artist companies I support. I don’t even know if my first layaway payment is even considered forfeited. Just… sigh. This entire transaction has me so disappointed."

I still owe them two layaway payments and haven’t been able to pay despite repeated requests. I have no idea if I have a doll. I have repeatedly checked my spam and mark all emails from their domain as not spam. The last I heard from them was on June 15, and there is still no resolution. I was planning on filing a claim earlier that week with my CC company for the first payment, but that June response stopped me. I asked for the payment link again, and silence.

It looks like a handful of people are leaving comments on their Instagram. Not sure if anything will come of it.

 

I’m shocked they haven’t even been working with you to get payment, they should want that at minimum! It really saddens me to see them losing fans over this. Not excusing it at all, I’m trying to stay positive but I feel the frustration too, all their dolls are so expensive it’s a lot to stake on just being patient.

I saw someone else on your Instagram post had already mentioned they were bad at responding to messages, but the Edda preorder is much more out of character for them to be so MIA like this. Outside of sending more emails, anyone have ideas what we could do? I’ve thought about contacting people who have worked with them to see if they know anything or could get in contact, but knowing production has taken this long before I didn’t do that. However maybe it’s beginning to be time for it…

 

Call them out on their behaviour on social media. I'm sorry but their sickness and personal problems are not good excuses. If they really wanted they would have found a way to update us. 100% something is going on here.

 

I'm sorry for the lack of response here!

I just don't really know at this point. After they wrote back to me, it was hard not to feel empathetic about the personal problems even though this is a business. I was feeling positive again about my order, but the silence has been deafening again. I think I may call my bank and just ask for a refund. I've tried everything I could to pay them, and once more, I don't feel excited about this order. I don't want to add stress to them, but I've genuinely tried *everything* to pay them. It shouldn't be this difficult. This is truly the worst transaction I've ever had with a BJD company.

I seem to fluctuate between wanting this doll and not depending on how I feel on a particular day. I am pretty sure that if I asked for a refund for my layaway payment (since I had been unable to pay the remaining balance despite 10+ requests), I'll be blocked in the future from any other purchase. That honestly kind of stinks, too, but I don't know if I actually want to buy from them again.

 

An update on my end: I called my CC company to dispute the first payment I made. I still haven't heard back from Dust of Dolls when I have repeatedly asked (almost even begged?) to pay them since last year. At this point, I don't want to deal with it anymore. I can empathize with what Dolls of Dolls may be going through, but even if there was a doll at the end of it for me, I will look at Edda with nothing but disappointment and frustration. Moreover, it will remind me of this terrible buying experience.

My bank said they would get back to me with a response once it's been reviewed/processed. Fingers crossed that I am able to get a refund back. I really didn't want to go down this path, but I felt like I was forced to since I still haven't received a response from them since the last June message and their Instagram and website haven't been updated. I will probably be blocked from making future purchases from them again, but I can live with that.

 

@honeyedbiscuit if that gets you any sort of response from Dust of Dolls please do let us know! Maybe the funds can get you a doll that'll arrive on time as well.

I sent them another email a couple days ago, I don't think I'll see a response soon but tried to keep it short and sweet. I'm willing to wait this out because I let a Beige Doom Wawa slip through my fingers once before (really I shouldn't have bought her in the first place due to cost at the time, but fell in love regardless).

Will share response I get here, if/when I get one. I did also say that reinstating their monthly newsletter would be appreciated. It'll at least show customers they're alive and attentive if we can get that back.

 

I dont think you guys will receive their dolls…some paid for the dolls and paypal cant return your money also, dod still ignores customers on instagram etc you should report it somewhere

 

Also Doa should ban them now, yes they are famous company but their behaviour is unacceptable and unprofessional, like some scam now

 

Ofc we won't get the dolls. The excuses they used are pretty much what a scammer would say: never-ending sickness and an incredible convenient incident to the caster. I would be very shocked if we received the dolls. I'm also very annoyed that people everywhere are cool with what's going on.

 

My cc company awarded me a temporary credit but is asking for more proof (expected). I have until the end of the month to provide it. Banks are dinosaurs since I have to mail it or fax it in lol. Will post again once the decision has been finalized.

Dust of Dolls still never replied to any of my messages once June, nor did they send me a response as a result of the dispute.

 

What's their email? I want to see if they reply to an unknown email. I have like 10.

 

I'm sure it's somewhere on their site. I never was able to successfully get a response from them via email, so I always used the contact forms on their page. Also, I'm 100% not cool with what is going on. I made an Instagram post months ago and tagged with bjdsale to get some more info from the IG folks. After making good effort with trying to get a response from them, I went ahead and filed a dispute. I suspect many people just want the dolls from them, which is completely understandable. Who knows if my CC company will grant the final credit to me - I will find out later this month.

So I understand why people are treading lightly as they may be out of money and the doll. Should it be like this? No, but I can understand the unease that many people feel without wanting to jeopardize their own situation. Also, many customers of theirs have been long-term customers who really do like their work. I was a new customer, but I'm done with this type of buying experience. Anyway, the frustration people should have should be with Dust of Dolls, not with buyers who are in the same boat.

 

I'm definitely not ok with them not answering, just familiar with this amount of wait time. However I am hitting my breaking point on tagging them, I've tagged them in stories already and shared experiences with others on instagram too, and will probably make more posts.

Like you said, I'd rather have the doll itself. Now that we're already at 9 months, I'd be willing to wait longer if they just tell us what's going on. But if it's going to be longer than a year...I would start considering contacting my credit card company about it. Thats about $1300 USD I could put elsewhere.

 

For me personally, I am concerned and I don't think think that the lack of updates is professional, but I don't yet feel like this is a scam.

For one, the last preorder Dust of Dolls did was for Appi Meel Ardoise at the beginning of June 2021. The dolls didn't start arriving until February 2022. I absolutely assume that Edda is both more intensive to cast (way bigger!) and received FAR more orders. I ordered both Edda and Kore - looking at the order numbers, there are 128 orders in between the two. It took 8 months to produce the much less popular Meel, so 9 months for Edda is not surprising or worrisome to me.

The other thing is that they are late in responding to all messages, including people trying to send them money! To me, it doesn't seem like scammer behavior to leave money that people are actively trying send you. It would actually be easier and more effective to get everyone's money and then string them along, instead of dropping out of communication, not collecting money, and not speaking up to avoid a chargeback.

My honest impression of the situation is that they got a lot more orders than usual, from a lot of new people, and fell behind on answering their messages due to some personal situation. There is no news, but there are a lot of people demanding updates, which is making them even more anxious about checking/answering their messages. (Lyly said to me in her last email that she was unable to deal with the website messages due to anxiety attacks.) I wouldn't be surprised if they were waiting until they get good news from the caster, because it's easier to deliver good news than no news to angry, anxious customers. It's not a good way to handle the situation, but that's how I see it. I'm willing to see this through for longer myself, because ultimately I do still want the dolls and it's not as if we have Paypal protection running out or anything.